Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In ancient Rome: A white toga or wrap with a broad purple border, worn by children of both sexes.
- noun A white toga with a broad border of purple, worn as their official dress by higher magistrates and priests, and upon certain ceremonial occasions, as the discharge of vows or the celebration of religious rites, by those citizens who were chiefly concerned. Compare
clavus .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Rom. Antiq.) A white robe with a purple border, worn by a Roman boy before he was entitled to wear the
toga virilis , or until about the completion of his fourteenth year, and by girls until their marriage. It was also worn by magistrates and priests.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun historical A white
robe with a purpleborder , worn by aRoman boy before he was entitled to wear the toga virilis, or until about the completion of his fourteenth year, and bygirls until theirmarriage . It was also worn bymagistrates andpriests .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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The robe, called praetexta, with large borders of purple, being the formal dress of magistrates in their dignity, and in the exercise of their office, the actors, who had this dress, gave its name to the comedy.
The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 05 Miscellaneous Pieces Samuel Johnson 1746
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If, finally, you see him lamenting, complaining, unhappy, call him a slave though he wears a praetexta.
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Then he would take off the customary toga praetexta of a Roman boy and put on him the toga virilis, the coat of manhood.
THE NAMES OF JESUS RUBEL SHELLY 1999
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Then he would take off the customary toga praetexta of a Roman boy and put on him the toga virilis, the coat of manhood.
THE NAMES OF JESUS RUBEL SHELLY 1999
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You should have abandoned the praetexta, it's just a trifle too much purple.
Fortune's Favorites McCullough, Colleen, 1937- 1993
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He was dressed in the purple-bordered toga praetexta and preceded by twenty-four lictors shivering in crimson tunics and brass-bossed black leather belts, with the ominous axes inserted in their bundles of rods.
Fortune's Favorites McCullough, Colleen, 1937- 1993
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He was wearing his silly wig, of course, and a purple-bordered toga praetexta, his twenty-four lictors crouched on the ground forward of the front row.
Fortune's Favorites McCullough, Colleen, 1937- 1993
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Unclean, unclean, unclean, unclean: Sulla kept repeating the word over and over as he hurried home, there to bathe and clothe himself this time in toga praetexta-a man did not have more than one set of triumphal regalia, and that one set only if he had triumphed.
Fortune's Favorites McCullough, Colleen, 1937- 1993
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Seated on a curule chair, Sulla in toga praetexta and full Roman majesty glared.
Fortune's Favorites McCullough, Colleen, 1937- 1993
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Except for you, Mamercus, spoiling things in your praetexta and emitting those peculiar sounds.
Fortune's Favorites McCullough, Colleen, 1937- 1993
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